Woot Staff posts overrides user posts even though I posted the deal first?

Jun 2, 2010 7:05 PM

I posted a deal first, then 3-4 minutes later, a Woot Staff posts the same deal. Well, next thing I learn that my deal gets removed? Is this how this site operates? I was even very detailed in my post while the other post had to "add" info with additional posts. Don't you guys check the time stamps of the deals before you remove posts?

I am probably blowing this out of proportion but its the principal. Don't you want this site to be user-generated? WOW, just wow!

@t8ig3r staff never informs members when a deal gets deleted. In the long run it will create less drama trust me. But you can always ask and in this case I think you are justified. Since it is clear that staff removed the wrong deal - Again.

I can't give you a link on my original post because it got deleted. But if you have records of tattling. I did tattle a duplicate on that post. Minutes after I tattled, my post got deleted instead. I posted this deal about 3-4 minutes earlier than the post above. Right after I got my ebay daily email notification I went straight here to post.

I am a very thorough person and always make sure not to post duplicates by using the search feature and click on most recent, I hope the rest of the staff will try and do the same.

Also, if I may make a suggestion, if my post gets deleted or removed for any reason, I'd like to receive some notification on why it was removed.

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I’m not sure exactly what deal you’re talking about, but I assure you it was not done on purpose. If your deal was removed, I think I speak for the deals team as a whole when I say we look to please our community first and foremost!

I can't give you a link on my original post because it got deleted. But if you have records of tattling. I did tattle a duplicate on that post. Minutes after I tattled, my post got deleted instead. I posted this deal about 3-4 minutes earlier than the post above. Right after I got my ebay daily email notification I went straight here to post.

I am a very thorough person and always make sure not to post duplicates by using the search feature and click on most recent, I hope the rest of the staff will try and do the same.

Also, if I may make a suggestion, if my post gets deleted or removed for any reason, I'd like to receive some notification on why it was removed.

@t8ig3r staff never informs members when a deal gets deleted. In the long run it will create less drama trust me. But you can always ask and in this case I think you are justified. Since it is clear that staff removed the wrong deal - Again.

I often post 1saleaday.com deals which are then featured as sponsored deals an hour later. They delete my post almost immediately after theirs goes up. I've just gotten used to it...@t8ig3r I agree there should be a notification system for deleting. I once had posted something negative about a product and my comment was deleted. I still don't know why...

is there any policy on merging truly duplicate deals? i've seen a few instances where helpful comments were also removed when the duplicate deal was removed, and thinking to myself "oh what did so-and so say about this product again?" only to find that the comments had not been moved to the official thread.

@goatcrapp: people have asked for that. At least that the votes be merged to the original deal. But nothing has been doing with the idea yet. Also I think it was suggested that if the original deal didn't have any info and the second deal did that the info be added by staff too, again nothing beyond staff thinking it was maybe a good idea.

@goatcrapp: btw I didn't mean to sound negative in my previous post. We have asked and asked. we seem to be ignored by staff in our request for it. So please keep on asking. I think it is a good idea to at least give the orginal deal poster the votes maybe, although I am a tiny bit conflicted on that but that is because if someone is just going down the line and voting for anything then I think that vote shouldn't count, if you catch my drift and I know there are people who do that.

But I do think that if someone spends time crafting a great descrption. Then the description should be kept even if it was the second deal, because there is the chance that the reason the deal was second is because the description was being so carefully crafted.

@goatcrapp, @hobbit: for the sake of "please keep on asking", I'll second (or eighteenth or whatever) the recommendation for deal merging.

on the other hand, I'm sure that it's not that the staff is ignoring the request as much as getting to grips how best to handle a deal merge (perhaps we can start a thread discussing this). it's probably best if there were a way to merge deals automatically (where the staff only needs to identify the relevant deals) than needing staff intervention to copy the best parts of each deal into a unified post (which might be neater, but more time consuming for the staff and result in accidental copy/paste errors or misquotes).

@dealsmod1: Any feedback or responses or are we just going to drop it like nothing happened?

@goatcrapp: & @hobbit: I really like the merging deals idea. In my original post, I shared a lot more useful information, options and personal opinion that may help others decide whether to wait for a better deal or hop on the current deal. I feel that removing useful posts and information on a deal even if its a duplicate is a waste of effort for those who actually put time and commitment in sharing their info/feedback/etc.

Merging descriptions and comments: here's how. When the dupe is deleted, the copy is wrapped into a comment in the winning thread. Simple as that. "Wrapped", because there needs to be some explanatory text, such as

This deal was posted elsewhere with the following description:
[blah]
Wooters left these comments:
[blah]

Votes could be included in the [blah], with no further voting allowed.

Votes against the deleted deal itself would have to be tracked -- if the same user voted for the original and the dupe, then that vote wouldn't be added.

Seems to me its either a little bit of coding, or a little bit of extra legwork by the moderators for manual-mode... either method wouldn't be all that hard to implement (albeit the to-do list is likely miles long, so that in and of itself becomes a challenge of prioritizing)

It also seems to me that there is a very large talent pool in this community to draw volunteers from in order to get things done manually, (this, and other requests) while having the added benefit of relieving the strain on the to-do pile.

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Not a farewell, just a forced redirect.

It's true, Local.Woot is no longer, but please don't despair.

Never-ending savings are still to be found on Deals.Woot each and every day, so come on in. Don't think of it as a time for tears. Think of it as a way to bring us all closer together under one roof.

Sorry

This is only for people who have bought woots

We restrict voting to users who have purchased something from one of the other Woot stores. It's not just because we want your money (which we do) - it's the best way to be sure all the votes are coming from real people and not spam-bots or phony accounts. The best way we can think of, anyway. For now.

You can always get voting rights by buying something from one of Woot's other sites:

Purchases through Deals.Woot don't count, because in that case you're not buying anything from us. And we don't have your account information for those purchases.

If you think you've bought something from Woot before and still can't vote, make sure you're logged in with the same account you used to buy from us.

Geez, why so negative?

You have to vote up more before you can vote down.

Don't get us wrong. Negativity has its place. And downvotes are just as essential as upvotes when it comes to making Deals.Woot a useful place to find deals.

But when your votes lean so heavily toward the dark side, we have to wonder. Go vote up a few things. Accentuate the positive for a little while. It'll do you some good, and it'll do the site some good, too. Then you can get back to dealing out the smackdowns, OK?

Too late, we all heard you!

Hmm... you're wanting to take your vote back?

Well, that's a bit tricky. See, we do a lot of stuff with your vote, using it to work out the popularity of what you voted for, compare that to all the other things voted on, tally up our leaderboard, work out your reputation. Someday we'll do a little cartoon showing just how hard your vote is working.

Anyway, taking votes back messes all that up, so we give you five minutes, in case you just mis-clicked. After that we've got to say no take-backs. Luckily, votes are free, so feel free to throw them around left and right wherever you see fit.